A cacophony of words, a rage of similes, and a dash of awkward poetry. You know, to keep it classy.

Category Archives: No? Just Me?

So, I’ve recently come across some extremely mixed feelings when checking my twitter feed in the morning, and all of them have to do with live-tweeting.

On the one hand, I completely understand why actors would want to live-tweet their show – It makes fans feel more connected, it gives fans an inside look at the making of the show (much like DVD commentaries, which I personally love), and it’s a free way to promote themselves.

On the other hand, people who follow live-tweeters end up with pages upon pages that look like this:

I love me some J-Pad (Although not as much as Jensen Ackles), but he is frequent live-tweeter and filler-upper of my twitter.

It also means that people who choose to/have to record a show on their trusty DVR could have spoilers ruined for them when they check twitter (with no warning), so it’s really only beneficial for folks who are on twitter while they watch their shows.

Personally, when I am watching a show that I love, I don’t have my eye on my phone – I’m actually watching the show. Not to smack people who do feel the need to multitask while watching TV; I just prefer to give all of my attention to a show, because it allows me to enjoy it a bit more.

But, even without watching the show, it is still interesting to hear about what was going on behind the scenes, and actors are generally pretty humorous about everything, to further enhance the viewer’s enjoyment of the show.

Hence, I am torn; I love/hate live-tweeting, and I don’t know if I should embrace the background information on a show I haven’t watched yet or weed out the live-tweeters from my twitter feed.

Have you ever had one of those moments in books where you get the overwhelming DESIRE to do something described in what you’re reading? I’m not talking about some food that sounds good (although that totally happens – the Turkish Delight from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Sounds delicious in the book! In real life, it’s basically just nasty covered in powdered sugar, and I am not the only one who feels this way.)

I’m talking about an itching need to do something you read about – something you would never do in real life, but you can imagine yourself doing it in a past life, and crave the feeling again.

Recently I was reading Dorothy Allison’s Bastard out of Carolina, where she describes a whole family of people who drink and chew tobacco and do all sorts of things that you would expect a family of hillbillies to do, and I got the urge to do something that I have never in my life wanted to do: smoke a cigarette.

The way she describes it, it just sounded so comforting and normal, like it was something you would naturally do (which is true for a lot of people, I guess). I was shocked at my urge to smoke a cigarette, because I come from not only a family of non-smokers, but a family that is heavy into the medical field (I have a lot of nurses in my family). I know that if I ever started smoking, I would get bombarded with factoids, pictures and other paraphernalia that is used to scare smokers into quitting. It’s never really been an option to me, and even at my most rebellious (which, lets face it, was nowhere near rebellious), I would never have even considered starting to smoke.

To me, it is a sign of an excellent writer that they can spark such natural desire in a reader to do something so uncharacteristic.

Sometimes Facebook gets its timing just right to brighten up an otherwise gloomy day in the office. I love it when non-sentient beings get snarky.

Timing points – +1000.

Side note: If you are getting your major news stories from a wordpress website, you should probably understand that the facts are probably not as they seem, since wordpress sites are free and anyone can start up a “news” site to spout their own opinions.

I would say I’m only judging a little, but who am I kidding? I’m judging a lot.

So, I work in a cubicle. It’s a nice cubicle, with glass walls instead of the blue-carpet-covered-corkboard crap, but it’s a cubicle nonetheless: no door, big desk, computer – you know the drill.

Privacy? What privacy?

The problem is that the other side of my glass wall faces a main walkway in my office – great for being a busybody and knowing who is where at most times, less great when people see you through the glass and remember something vitally important that they need to tell you.

This usually ends up with:

Me asking them to repeat themselves at least twice

Them giving up on repeating themselves more than twice, and walking around to the front of my desk

or, my personal favorite,

Them standing on their tippy-toes and pointing their faces at the top of the glass in an effort to help their voice carry over to my ears (yes, it has happened).

All of this has made me decide that I need to take some decorating tips from Big Boy.

Have you ever gone to a Big Boy and had more than the designated four people in your party? They do this awesome thing with the booths where they will take out the middle window section that divides two booth, letting you see everyone in your overly large party without having to sit at separate booths (at least, this is an option at the Big Boy I frequented in my childhood). It was an amazingly easy way to be able to talk to people, and would really solve my people-talking-to-me-through-a-window-like-a-penguin-in-a-zoo problem.

So I think it is time that I formally request slide down window-walls in my office, to further the communications between myself and my fellow coworkers. Although I will miss the unique ways in which they try to talk to me through the glass…

Like this:

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read this phrase on Facebook in the last few months, generally followed by a link to a news story about a horrible murder/rape/despicable act (extra points if the despicable act involves people of two different races!).

I know it stems from the amount of time newscasters have spent on the Trayvon Martin case, but this is such an obnoxious way to say that you find the amount of coverage unnecessary (and, in my opinion, a way to be a racist without having to resort to the n-word on public forums).

The thing that especially bugs me about these “unique” Facebook posts is the fact that most of the links are to major news sites (Fox, ABC, CBS, etc.), which means that whoever posted this article about a “pregnant woman killed in brutal racially motivated murder” found it on a news site! You’re commenting on how it is not in the news (supposedly due to extreme coverage of an African-American boy who was shot that you have no feelings for), while you read the article in the news!

Gah!

Sometimes I just can’t stand people, and more and more those people are on my Facebook. I honestly think that this is the reason why a lot of (younger) people are flocking to social medias like twitter – it’s a bit more casual in that you can unfollow someone who bugs you without them knowing, and they can still follow you. It makes me feel better about whittling down my friends list, in a way that I feel I cannot do on Facebook (without horribly offending people that I really don’t care about, but would rather not offend, because I’m a bit of a pussy like that).

Okay, I just needed to rant that out a bit. Thanks for staying with me (unless you didn’t, in which case I really can’t blame you).